Bringing Middle East Viewpoints to Americans

Americans who know the Saudis only from the pictures flashing across television screens may be pardoned for assuming that people who all seem to dress alike probably think alike as well.

However, those who met some of the Saudis pictured on these pages at universities, US military bases, church and mosque auditoriums, and civic organizations in November and December found outjust how erroneous that stereotype is.

As lively and diverse in occupations, geographical background, and temperament as the most heterogeneous group of Americans, these volunteer members of a non-governmental Saudi Friendship Delegation traveled to cities all over the United States to exchange ideas with Americans.

Led by Deputy Minister of Commerce Abdulrahman Al-Zamil, a dynamic problem solver for foreign businessmen in Saudi Arabia, the group includes other government officials, a noted archeologist, university professors, prominent businessmen, and specialists in Islamic affairs.

The trip was backstopped by the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Its US itinerary was coordinated by the US-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, in consultation with such groups as the National Council on US-Arab Relations, the Arab American Institute, and the National Association of Arab Americans.

Because participants come from different cities in Saudi Arabia, their first meeting as a group was in Washington, DC, only hours after their arrival on flights that, for some, involved 15 hours in the air.

Discussions were nevertheless lively. "We don't want to get bogged down in details," warned Dr. Al-Zamil, who took a Ph.D. in international relations at the University of Southern California in 1972, while also serving as national vice president of the Arab Student Organization, a group encompassing students from 21 Arab nations.

"We recognize that the debate going on here will continue without us," said Abdullah A. Alireza, executive director of Xenel Industries, with a range of major business interests. "But we want Americans to realize why it is as important to stop aggression in the Middle East in the 1990s as it was to stop it in Europe in the 1930s."

"There are issues to be raised with the American people, whether or not there is a crisis in the Gulf, " said Dr. Abdulaziz Mohammed Al-Dukheil, a Riyadh investment consultant and former deputy minister of finance, whose Ph.D. is from Indiana University. "The humanization of the people of the Gulf is something we should have addressed long ago."

In fact, Saudi Arabia is virtually unique in the Arab world in having sent such diverse groups of citizens to introduce themselves to Americans at least twice before. They learned that Americans knew little about them, although Saudis are keenly aware of the US role in helping to develop Saudi Arabia's vast petroleum reserves, educating a generation that has now reached the top echelons of government, and constructing a modern infrastructure that has turned the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into an industrialized nation in one generation. Members of the group hoped to acquaint their American audiences with some of these accomplishments.

"We have nothing to be ashamed of," explained Abdulrahman M. Alsadhan, secretary general of Saudi Arabia's Civil Service Council, and holder of an MA in public administration from the University of Southern California. "Our modern history began just 50 years ago. If peace continues in our country, we will continue to make such progress. But we have to develop our own democracy. You cannot dictate democracy by royal decree. It is something that must grow out of a culture. It is something that grows over centuries. You have your constitution. Our constitution is the Holy Quran."

As teams from the group fanned out to Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and other cities, they found little controversy among Americans about defending Saudi Arabia from attack, but concern that what began as collective defense might end with a war to destroy Iraq.

"Our quarrel is with President Saddam Hussain, not the Iraqi people," Alsadhan assured one group of US Muslims.

"We are talking about an aggressor here, " explained Dr. Abdulaziz L. Al Jarbou, president of the Saudi Arabian Amiantit Group of companies. "Our objective is to get the aggressor back where he came from."

Participants in the friendship delegation met groups as diverse as families of US military personnel in Saudi Arabia, Arab Americans concerned about the Gulf crisis's effect on the Palestinians and Lebanese, and US Muslims with concerns generated by media coverage of the Iraqi aggression and the Western military buildup.

"We don't have a perfect approach to human rights, or to women's rights Dukheil told his audiences. "We do, however, believe that economic freedom is synonymous with human rights. And this, as men of the desert, is something with which we are born. So long as you Americans stand for freedom and against tyranny, dictatorship and oppression, we want to stand shoulder to shoulder with you."

It is a message that more Americans could hear if such friendship delegations came annually to the United States. The message would be amplified immeasurably if, instead of leaving the whole job to the Saudis, other Arab states encouraged some of their best and brightest to form truth squads of their own to tell Americans, as Dukhail explained:

"We are not just the people who live where the oil is pumped. We have our feelings, our lives, and our aspirations. We haven't fully realized them yet, and that is something we're not happy about. But it took 200 years in the United States.